Entertainment

Twitter Responds: There is No Official Twitter TV Show

Twitter responded today to reports, stemming from a Variety article, that a Twitter TV show is in the works.

Twitter's Biz Stone has confirmed that Twitter has signed a contract with production company Reveille and Brillstein for a TV show, but emphasizes that this is not an "official" Twitter show - it's a non-exclusive contract, and multiple companies are currently working on TV projects related to Twitter.

In plain english, then: Twitter is allowing production companies to work on Twitter shows, but there will be many of these and Twitter will not, it seems, endorse one ahead of another. This sounds similar to the Nighttline web show launched by ABC: the company claimed to have an agreement with Twitter, but this is likely to be non-exclusive.

It's a smart strategy that mirrors their approach to application development: build whatever you want, since it's all free marketing for Twitter. And distancing the company from these projects has another advantage: no brand damage if they all fail catastrophically.

Twitter Goes Hollywood? - Stone's Full Response

The web is abuzz today with talk of a "Twitter TV show." I'm even getting folks asking me if they can audition. Indeed, there are a lot of interesting developments happening in the television space—MTV, G4, CNN, E! and various independent production companies are all leveraging Twitter for fun new projects. There are probably a bunch we don't even know about yet.

Is There An Official Twitter Show?

There is no official Twitter TV show—although if there were it would be fun to cast! In dealing with networks and production companies we sometimes have simple agreements. Regarding the Reveille and Brillstein project reported today, we have a lightweight, non-exclusive, agreement with the producers which helps them move forward more freely.

Our Openness Is Extensive

Twitter is very open. As a result, thousands of different applications, web sites, and mobile interfaces have been created by developers. These different approaches add variety and relevance to Twitter and in general make the ecosystem more interesting. However, Twitter's openness is not limited to the web or even to mobile phones.

During the 2008 presidential elections, Hack The Debate showed us how Twitter could make television interactive and possibly even have a democratizing effect on the medium. The power of Twitter was harnessed to create new, compelling, and engaging programming. CNN was an early innovator with Twitter too. Our openness made it all possible.

Twitter's open approach might have the power to transform television—the dominant communications receiver worldwide. We're very excited to see where these experiments take us.

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